


Disastrous Interlude

by Markov_Debris



Series: Company Series [8]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Canon Temporary Character Death, Episode: s01e13 End of Days, M/M, POV Ianto Jones, Series Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-19 14:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12412272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Markov_Debris/pseuds/Markov_Debris
Summary: Ianto’s POV of what happened after Jack was killed by Abaddon.





	Disastrous Interlude

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a companion piece to Debriefing Disaster (the next story in this series) but it was written later. It is however a stand alone story and can be read by itself as well as part of the company series.

Ianto got out of his car and walked behind the others as they approached Gwen and Jack.  The latter was being held by for former as she wept.  He had known what to expect but the deep bite of loss felt like a just punishment.

“Take him back to the Hub and wait for me.  I’ve got to...” Gwen began as they lifted Jack’s body away. 

None of them needed her to finish telling them what she needed to do, they all knew, they all wanted to know.

They had opened the Rift.  They had allowed the visions Bilis had shown them to trick them into thinking about opening the Rift, the one thing all Torchwood operatives were told not to do.  Not just thinking about opening the Rift, believing it was the right thing to do. 

He had told Jack he would be willing to make the sacrifice if opening the Rift meant saving the city.  Watching Gwen, who in many ways was the most innocent of all of them, mourn for her boyfriend, Ianto had known that if he could stop her from feeling the same pain he had felt when Lisa died, then he had to.

Ianto had had doubts when Owen shot Jack, felt a stabbing pain of loss he hadn’t expected to feel, but that same action had pushed them all past the point of no return.  He said he was willing to make a sacrifice but he hadn’t meant Jack, and in that moment he realised that losing him meant that once again there was nothing left for him to lose.

Of course they were wrong.

Jack had come back but Bilis had lied.  He had tricked them into opening the Rift so that Abaddon could be released.  Only the Captain had known how to stop it and he had stopped it, they had watched from a safe distance as a light hit the creature and it disappeared.  All around them those that had dropped dead from being touched by the beasts shadow got up and shook themselves, walking away as if nothing had happened.

They had also gotten back into the Hub to find that, apart from some structural damage and general mess, everything was as it should be.  Those that they had taken in from the various cracks in space and time were gone.  Rhys’ body was no longer in the morgue, nor was he locked in a cell.  They were feeling good about surviving the whole thing more or less unscathed when Gwen phoned to tell them Jack was dead and she needed their help.

That was why Ianto wordlessly handed over his car keys so that Gwen could go home to check the Rhys was alright.  It seemed as if every rift related thing that had happened since Owen opened the Rift to get Tosh and Jack back from 1941 had reversed but, worryingly, that might only be true for Rhys if Bilis himself was in some way Rift related.

Ianto bent down and lifted Jack up in a fireman’s carry.  He didn’t know why Owen and Tosh were so shocked. He might not be an action man but that didn’t mean he didn’t keep fit, or had they just never really realised that such a job was easier if you were the same size as the person you were carrying.

“Right let’s get him in the back,” Owen ordered despite the fact that the Welshman only needed help with the doors to make it so.

He got in the back, pulling Jack in behind him.   Once he buckled the seatbelt around Jack as best he could he realised that Tosh had taken the passenger seat and Owen the driver’s which meant that he was sitting next to his dead lover, with his head on his lap as if asleep.

None of them said anything during the drive back to the Hub, nor did they say anything as Ianto prepared his body, stripping off his clothes as he would for any other corpse, washing him as if it was just another victim and not the last remnants of the man he loved.

The whole time he didn’t feel anything.  It was worse than when Lisa died because this was all his fault, if he hadn’t let himself be tricked, if he had gone with Jack to face Adaddon, maybe there was a chance that at the epicentre there would have been no coming back for him either.

Ianto never really remembered anything from the time they left the waste ground until he saw Gwen walking towards them in the Vaults as they stood waiting for her.  While none of them said anything, they were all intending to just say a few words and lock him away in the cold until the Welshwoman spoke.

“You’re certain?” asked Gwen as if she, like Ianto, couldn’t quite believe someone who had been so alive could be gone.

“He’s ice cold. No vital signs,” Owen said.

“He survived when you shot him,” she pointed out.

 Ianto didn’t want to say anything but he knew what they were all thinking; that of course he came back because everything else that had happened when Owen opened the Rift reversed.  Yes, he had heard the rumours about Jack being immortal but that was just wishful thinking.

“When I first joined, he said he couldn’t die,” Gwen said.

“He was wrong,” Owen said bluntly.

“I want to sit with him,” Gwen said.

“Gwen,” Owen said.

“I want to sit with him,” Gwen insisted, reaching out to stroke Jack’s hair.

She was clutching at straws they all knew it but Owen nodded knowing that there was no arguing with her.  Tosh followed him immediately, torn between wanting the hope her words suggested and being practical.

Ianto hesitated.  He wanted to sit with her, well he wanted to sit with Jack but he couldn’t.  He wanted to sit and grieve his lover, while she was waiting for a friend to wake up as if he was in a coma.  If there was to be any hope left in the world he had no place by her side.

Hours become days.

The Welshman told Gwen whenever the others had gone out to deal with something and stood by the door while she answered nature’s call.  He brought her food, more often things Jack liked than things she did in the hope that that might make him wake.  The Welshwoman in tern says nothing, even when he brought something he knows she doesn’t like.  He also brought her bedding to allow her to sleep by his side, and a chair to sit on so she is more comfortable.

“How long’s she gonna do this?” Owen asked after a few days as they watch Gwen on the CCTV.

Ianto looks at Owen and catches his eye before looking back to where Gwen is once more straightening out the body bag.

“You should be the one down there you know.  She should give you a chance to say goodbye,” Owen said with a compassion that was both shocking and unwanted.

“Leave her be,” Ianto replied gently.

The Welshman’s head told him that Jack was dead, that they could wait a hundred days and Jack was never coming back.  Deep in his heart thought there was a part of him that didn’t want Gwen to give up and leave the Vaults, because when she did, that he would know that hope was dead.

“Come on...”

“I said leave her be,” Ianto said firmly raising his voice, shocking the other two.

He turned away from them, not willing to be in their company any more.  They all had a part in Jack’s death and at that minute he couldn’t stand being anywhere near them or any other reminder of why his life would never be anything but pain.

It was ironic perhaps that he found himself in Jack’s office.  It was as messy as the rest of the Hub had been when they first returned.  Needing something to do he began to tidy up, whether for Jack or for his replacement, the Welshman had no wish to speculate.

The last things he straightened were some paper’s on the Captain’s desk waiting for him to sign, including the reports that everyone but Gwen had written on the Abaddon debacle.  Jack was always terrible at getting his paperwork done on time and now he was certainly late, though he had a good excuse.

Ianto sniffed as he straightened up, knowing that if he didn’t tears would fall soon and his eyes alighted on Jack’s greatcoat.  It should have been archived with the rest of his clothes but when Gwen declared she wanted to sit with him.  He couldn’t file it away, what if she was right and Jack woke up he would want his coat.

Without realising it he had moved towards it.  Tentatively Ianto lifted the coat.  He hesitated, knowing that if he was caught he would never hear the end of it, but such pain was nothing compared to what he felt at that moment.

Ianto lifted the coat to his face and inhaled deeply, his nose filling with the smell of Jack’s fifty-first century pheromones.   Tears fell now because he knew that this will be the only way he would ever be able to smell Jack again.  Grief overwhelmed him as he gave up.

When he left Jack’s office the oppressive silence told him that Owen and Tosh both knew what happened.  He ignored them and continued to tidy the Hub.  He could tell that the Medic wanted to ask him again if he should make Gwen leave but he didn’t; perhaps like Ianto he didn’t want to crush whatever hope the Welshwoman had because he’s glad that someone still has hope.

A day later when Toshiko asks him to join her in repairing the equipment near the hand in the jar, he knows she has spoken to Gwen.  He doesn’t think she knows exactly why Owen thought he should be by Jack’s side; but she can see how it is affecting both men and she is the only one brave enough to tell the Welshwoman that perhaps she has waited long enough.

That was why he didn’t understand at first when she abandoned the equipment and was walking around him to run across the Hub.  He stood as he saw her heading towards the impossible, only daring to move as Tosh practically leapt into Jack’s arms.

Ianto followed her at a slower pace, allowing Toshiko to have a moment with her friend. 

Guilt and the doubts that had been wracking him about their relationship made him offer his hand for a handshake.  There is a slightly exasperated look in Jack’s eyes as instead he reached for Ianto’s shoulders and the Welshman allowed himself to be pulled into a hug.

Holding Jack, being accepted by Jack, melted all the pain away.  They would not be embracing if he hadn’t been forgiven; though a guilty part of him believed even more that Jack would not be there alive and well at all if he hadn’t been forgiven.

Feeling a little awkward about the length of their embrace Ianto began to move back only for Jack’s hands to cup his face.  Their relationship had been such a secret that the meaning behind the gesture didn’t fully sink in until he was drawn in for a kiss. 

Joy at Jack being alive, surprise at being forgiven, and relief that Owen was wrong and that he meant more than just a part-time shag overwhelmed Ianto, so much that he forgot they were not alone.  It was only as they parted, as Jack’s hand brushed his as he passed, that he realised that a public declaration had been made, though of what he wasn’t sure.

He turned to watched Jack as he approached Owen.  There was something very Alpha male about the Captain as he approached, and something of a lesser alpha male who had been beaten to the top spot about the Medic.

“I’m…” Owen began, and Ianto knew that he was never going to be able to finish that sentence, no matter how much he meant it.

“I forgive you,” Jack said

Owen nods to himself then begins to cry as Jack grabs him and holds him; rubbing his back comfortingly, kissing his head.

It is then that Ianto knew that everything was going to be alright.  Jack really had come back from the dead, they had all been forgiven for being tricked.  They had gotten away with their poor decisions because the Rift had repaired itself, though he wasn’t optimistic enough to believe even now that there wouldn’t be consequences.

 

A few hours later Ianto’s universe was shattered again.

He returned from getting the promised coffee to learn that Jack had gone.  He searched every inch of the Hub until Toshiko unearthed the footage showing his lover run towards the Doctor’s TARDIS.

There was no competition; Jack was never going to want to come back, not to the darkness that was Torchwood.  Hurt though he was, while mourning he had come to realise that he had loved Jack enough to hope that he was going to be happy.

All there was left for him now was his duty, keep Torchwood running efficiently so that they could keep the Earth safe.

With that thought he collected a bin bag and began to fill it.

 

Fin

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually the last story that I wrote in this series. I was writing another story when I realised that my opinion regarding why it is Gwen, and not Ianto, who is at Jack's side during End of Days is quite different from a lot of other writers. For that particular story it was Gwen's POV that was the appropriate one to follow, but I worked out Ianto's reasoning at the same time and this story is the result and it was perfect for being part of the Company Series. I hope you liked it.


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